Mechanical ventilation is a standard and necessary treatment at lung injuries like the acute respiratory distress syndrome. But ventilator induced injuries are possible consequences especially at patients with long time ventilation or mislead settings. The prevention of such injuries can be optimized by finding an optimal model for the patients lung and identify the patients specific parameters...

The rightward regulatory region of bacteriophage lambda contains two promoters, pRM and pR, which direct the synthesis of nonoverlapping divergent transcripts from start sites 82 bp apart. Each of the two promoters has an upstream (A+T)-rich region (ATR) within the sequence from -40 to -60 where in the rrnB P1 promoter a stretch of 20 (A+T) bp greatly stimulates promoter function. Here we prese...

The N-terminal Src homology 3 (nSH3) domain of a signaling adaptor protein, CT-10 regulator of kinase II (CrkII), recognizes proline-rich motifs (PRMs) of binding partners, such as cAbl kinase. The interaction between CrkII and cAbl kinase is involved in the regulation of cell spreading, microbial pathogenesis, and cancer metastasis. Here, we report the detailed biophysical characterizations of...

UNLABELLED Benign Paroxysmal Positional Vertigo (BPPV) can cause falls, especially in the elderly. AIM to study whether or not elderly patients with BPPV have a reduction on their falls after the particle repositioning maneuver (PRM). MATERIALS AND METHODS retrospective study including elderly with BPPV who had fall(s) during the last year. All patients were submitted to the PRM according t...

Humoral immunity plays an important role in controlling dengue virus (DENV) infection. Antibodies (Abs) developed during primary infection protect against subsequent infection with the same dengue serotype, but can enhance disease following secondary infection with a heterologous serotype. A DENV virion has two surface proteins, envelope protein E and (pre)-membrane protein (pr)M, and inefficie...

Here, we report computational studies of the SH3 protein domain interacting with various single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNT) either bare or functionalized by mimicking the proline-rich motif (PRM) ligand (PPPVPPRR) and compare it to the SH3-PRM complex binding. With prolines or a single arginine attached, the SWCNT gained slightly on specificity when compared with the bare control, whereas w...

Flaviviruses assemble in the endoplasmic reticulum by a mechanism that appears to be driven by lateral interactions between heterodimers of the envelope glycoproteins E and prM. Immature intracellular virus particles are then transported through the secretory pathway and converted to their mature form by cleavage of the prM protein by the cellular protease furin. Earlier studies showed that whe...

West Nile virions incorporate 180 envelope (E) proteins that orchestrate the process of virus entry and are the primary target of neutralizing antibodies. The E proteins of newly synthesized West Nile virus (WNV) are organized into trimeric spikes composed of pre-membrane (prM) and E protein heterodimers. During egress, immature virions undergo a protease-mediated cleavage of prM that results i...

Dynamic task-dependent regulation of reflexes controlled by the central nervous system plays an integral part in neurocontrol of locomotion. Such modifications of sensory-motor transmission can be studied by conditioning a test reflex with specific motor tasks. To elicit short-latency test reflexes, we applied a novel transcutaneous spinal cord stimulation technique that depolarizes large-diame...

Received 23 July 2008; received in revised form 11 November 2008; accepted 12 November 2008 Available online 24 November 2008 Upstream interactions of Escherichia coli RNA polymerase (RNAP) in an open promoter complex (RPo) formed at the PR and PRM promoters of bacteriophage λ have been studied by atomic force microscopy. We demonstrate that the previously described 30-nm DNA compaction observe...